Listen, Shireenbai, he said. There is no need for you to worry about these things. It’s my job to stay abreast of these developments.

But I’m only telling you what my brothers are saying, Shireenbai protested. They are saying China will stop imports of opium and that it may even lead to fighting. They are saying you should not go now: the risk is too great.

This had made Bahram bristle: Arré, Shireenbai, what do your brothers know about this? They should do their work and leave me to mine. If they had been doing business with China as long as I have they would know that there’s been talk of war many times before and nothing has ever come of it – no more than it will now. If your father were alive today he would have supported me – but it’s as they say, ‘when the wise one goes, things fall apart …’

After her first line of argument proved ineffective, Shireenbai confessed to the other reasons for her concern: one of her astrologers had declared that the stars were aligned in such a way as to signal danger to all travellers; a diviner had seen portents of war and unrest; a trusted pir had warned of upheavals on the high seas. Persuaded of her husband’s peril, Shireenbai enlisted their two daughters – both of whom were married by now, and blessed with several children – to add their entreaties to hers, begging him not to go. As a concession he twice agreed to postpone his departure in order that some propitious portents might be found. But after a fortnight of waiting none such were discovered, and at last, fearing that he would miss the start of the Canton trading season, he had had set a date, declaring that he could wait no longer.

When the appointed morning arrived, everything had gone wrong: an owl was heard at daybreak, a dire augury; and then his turban was found on the floor, having fallen down at night. Worse still, while dressing to accompany Bahram to the docks, Shireenbai had broken her red marriage bangle. Bursting into tears, she had again implored him not to go: Tame na jao. You know what it means for a wife to break her bangle, don’t you? Even if you care nothing for me: what about the family? Do you care nothing for your daughters and their children? Jara bhi parvah nathi? Do you care nothing at all …?

There was something in her voice that made it impossible for Bahram to answer her in his usual indulgent way: in her pleas there was an urgency and despair which he had never heard before. It was as if she had at last accepted him as something more than a substitute for the husband she should have had; it was as if, after forty years of performing her marital duties with apathetic punctiliousness, her feelings for him had suddenly ripened into something else.

That it should happen now, that he should have to confront an emotion that was so raw, so naked, after a lifetime of coping with her disappointed, dutiful indifference, seemed profoundly unjust – had it happened even the day before, he might have told her about Chi-mei and Freddy, but with the ship waiting to weigh anchor it was impossible to speak of it now. Instead, he put his arm around Shireenbai as she sat doubled over on the edge of their bed, clutching her broken bangle. Her thin, angular form was draped from head to toe in pale, brocaded China silk; her sari was a relatively plain one, as it happened, yet the sheen of the fabric filled the room with a milky glow: she was wearing no jewellery other than her bangles and the only points of colour on her body came from the scarlet Jinliang slippers she wore on her feet – he had bought them for her in Canton, many years ago.